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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23339191">down here you're DOA (and you're heere to stay)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/junietuesday25/pseuds/junietuesday25'>junietuesday25</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>BMQ Entries [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Minor Injuries, aka the fic where we find out what the hell mr heere gets up to during zombie fics, the squip squad comes in at the very end but it's mostly just him, you ever notice how all the adults in those are just miraculously all on business trips</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:47:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,060</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23339191</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/junietuesday25/pseuds/junietuesday25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Heere returns from a business trip, and finds out that a lot has happened in the one week he was gone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>BMQ Entries [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>down here you're DOA (and you're heere to stay)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <s>dont murder me for the title its funny right??</s>
</p><p> </p><p>anyway remember that zombie apocalypse au i was writing? well this is NOT that sorry oof i swear i'll get around to it. meanwhile take this totally separate zombie au bc i always love apocalypse stories</p><p>title from "doa" from the lightning thief musical!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mr. Heere texts one-handed, pulling his luggage along behind him as he navigates through the airport to the exit. Business trips don’t bother him too much, other than missing Jeremy, but the actual flights are awful. Not to mention that there are only two days left until Passover—one day to rest from the flight, then it’s straight to preparation, because their branch of the Heeres was designated the host this year. He’d agreed, despite the fact he knew he had a business trip scheduled right before, because he figured he could do it if he was truly stepping up to be an actual adult. But his body is now telling him that he’s bitten off a <i>little</i> more than he can chew.</p><p>
  <i>Hey buddy! About to start driving home, I’ll get the groceries tomorrow if you haven’t already</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Please check if the guest room is set up, your aunt is very particular</i>
</p><p>Mr. Heere waits a few moments, but no reply. He puts his phone in his pocket; Jeremy’s probably busy, likely playing video games with Michael. Or he could be asleep, but seeing as it’s only twelve PM during spring break, Jeremy’s probably not planning on going to bed any time soon.</p><p>The drive back from the airport is quiet; the highways are thankfully mostly abandoned, so he doesn’t have to deal with idiotic drivers at this time at night when he just wants to go home. It’s only been a few minutes by the time he exits, the dark road twisting through a forest with towering trees. Though Jeremy has never said it out loud, Mr. Heere can tell that he always hates driving through it at night, because the lack of bright lamp-posts always seems to creep him out. When Jeremy was younger, Mr. Heere would sometimes jokingly warn him of werewolves sneaking through the woods, to which Jeremy would respond by hiding his face in his sweater for the rest of the stretch through the forest.</p><p>Mr. Heere emerges into the more brightly-lit streets of Middleborough, the familiarity of these roads and houses always a comfort when he comes home, no matter how often he’s been going on business trips lately. It’s a bit quiet for their town; despite it being past midnight, there are usually still at least a few cars still rumbling through the streets, but it’s totally abandoned tonight. </p><p>Mr. Heere tries to forget his slight trepidation as he parks in his driveway, letting out a breath when he enters the house. After removing his shoes and leaving his luggage in the hallway—he can put that away later—Mr. Heere goes up to Jeremy’s room, ready to tell him and Michael, however much he knows it’s a fruitless task, that they should go to bed soon. </p><p>But the room is empty. The TV isn’t even on, along with the controllers abandoned on Jeremy’s bed, so Mr. Heere can’t even blame it on them getting bored and wandering off to a different part of the house. Even then, they surely would have heard the door opening if they were downstairs, and the living room downstairs was abandoned; there’s not much for them to do down there other than watch TV.</p><p>Mr. Heere takes a deep breath to calm his rising panic, and thinks about it logically. They’re probably at Michael’s house—every school break is practically a perpetual sleepover for those two, only switching which house is hosting it. Mr. Heere had requested that Jeremy tell him whenever he was staying over at Michael’s house, but Jeremy probably just forgot to text, too caught up in whatever fun he’s getting up to right now. Mr. Heere’s not angry, but it would have saved him a lot of fear if Jeremy’d warned him that he’d be coming home to an empty house.</p><p>
  <i>Jeremy, are you at Michael’s house?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I’m not mad you didn’t text, I just want to know where you are</i>
</p><p>Nothing. Jeremy really needs to unmute his phone once in a while; Mr. Heere doesn’t know what he has against sound coming out of his device.</p><p>So Mr. Heere decides to text Michael’s mothers.</p><p>
  <i>Is Jeremy at your house?</i>
</p><p>Mr. Heere stares at the screen, concern bubbling up in him once again when there’s no response. They could be asleep, but actually, the previous times Mr. Heere’s been out on business, one of them had always remembered to text him that Jeremy was over at their house. It feels out of character for them to just suddenly forget, when they’re so insistent on communication between the Heeres and Mells. Another frantic idea comes: maybe Jeremy’s just at a party with some of his new friends? But Mr. Heere specifically said that Jeremy needed permission to go to one of those, and Jeremy’s been trying just as hard to fix their relationship since Jeremy’s mother left, so Mr. Heere can’t see Jeremy deliberately disobeying.</p><p>Something feels wrong.</p><p>Mr. Heere pauses, then goes back downstairs and to his car, planning on driving to the Mells’ house. If Jeremy’s there, great, and if he’s not, then Mr. Heere can at least have help searching for him.</p><p>The Mell household is empty. Mr. Heere rings the doorbell, waits a minute, then rings it again, but no response. No reply to harried knocking, either. There are no lights on, and the driveway is empty, so Mr. Heere gets in his car again and circles through town, trying to just <i>think</i>.</p><p>Jeremy being missing from the house is terrifying enough. And now the Mells are missing, too. There’s something shady going on, and Mr. Heere doesn’t think he’s equipped to deal with this.</p><p><i>I have to,</i> he thinks. <i>Put your pants on and do this.</i></p><p>Mr. Heere suddenly notices a familiar cloak lying on the sidewalk. It’s red and velvety and beautiful and Mr. Heere distinctly remembers Christine showing it off to Jeremy in the Heeres’ living room, gushing about how excited she was to wear it in the school’s performance of <i>Into the (Haunted, Rotting) Woods</i>, ie. <i>Into the Woods</i> with poltergeists and ghosts. Mr. Heere’s first instinct is to believe it’s a different cloak, because he can’t imagine Christine abandoning something she’d worked so hard on and loved so much in the middle of the sidewalk like that, but no. When Mr. Heere slowed down to take a closer look, it was definitely Christine’s—it had the fur hood that Christine had complained about stitching through, and it was lying open, displaying the inside pocket that Christine used to hide a basket during the show. But what was most concerning about the cloak were the deep, ragged slash marks through the fabric, almost feet long.</p><p>Mr. Heere parks his car, takes a flashlight—a gag gift from Jeremy for Mr. Heere’s birthday, a strange pencil-shaped thing with a face, the eraser holding the lightbulb—from the storage compartment between the driver’s and shotgun seats, and gets out of the car to crouch down on the sidewalk next to the cloak. Now that he’s pointing the flashlight’s beam directly on it, Mr. Heere can see splashes of dried blood, and a fragment of paper shoved into the cloak’s pocket. All that Mr. Heere can make out is a scrawled letter “z” in Christine’s loopy cursive.</p><p>Mr. Heere stares at the note. The edges are ragged, so it looks like the paper should’ve said more, but was ripped. The “z” seems to curve up into an “o”, but Mr. Heere can’t be sure.</p><p>Mr. Heere takes the note and gets back in his car, desperate at this point to have <i>any</i> clue what happened in the short week he was gone. He throws himself into the nearest open shop—a 7-Eleven—intending to talk to the person at the register.</p><p>“Have you seen a—”</p><p>Mr. Heere’s words die on his lips. The shelves are completely bare—not even a single bag of chips or the smallest bottle of lotion was spared. The store’s lights are on, which is why Mr. Heere thought it was open, but the building is completely empty of both humans and products. Mr. Heere can’t help but wander through the store’s abandoned aisles, wondering what the hell is going on.</p><p>There’s a phone tossed haphazardly on the check-out counter. Mr. Heere lunges for it, and is relieved to find it still has charge. Which is when he realizes that he has no clue what the phone’s password is, but turns out it’s not needed—whoever owns (owned?) that phone should really care about their security more, because Mr. Heere just clicks the home button, and the screen immediately opens to Safari.</p><p>“How to make soup” and “how to perform brain surgery” are the oldest two searches, but they’re not what Mr. Heere is concerned about. What really catches his eye is the most recently searched, “how to kill zombies”.</p><p>Zombies. That makes sense for everything he’s seen—the abandoned homes, the bare streets, the empty shelves and the blood-stained slashed cloak. But that can’t be happening, right? Zombies only exist in movies. How could a zombie apocalypse happen in his town while he was gone?</p><p>Mr. Heere takes a deep breath, then manages a semblance of a plan. He’s going to find literally any other human being in this town, and get them to explain that there’s a completely rational explanation for all this.</p><p>And so Mr. Heere rushes back to his car, and parks by the first open business he finds—a 24-hour diner with the display lights on, and movement and chatter inside.</p><p>Mr. Heere practically throws himself through the diner’s door, and is met with a completely empty dining area. For a second, Mr. Heere panics, but realizes that there’s a flurry of yelling behind the doors to what Mr. Heere assumes is the kitchen. Although customers aren’t supposed to go there, Mr. Heere’s sure this counts as extenuating circumstances, so he pushes open the door, and is met with the sight of Jeremy, Michael, and their friends fighting for their lives.</p><p>Mr. Heere barely registers what he’s seeing. Jeremy locks eyes with him in the middle of frantically wrestling a zombie away from him, and screams, “DAD!” But while he’s distracted, the zombie he’s fighting manages to topple him to the ground—the only thing that saves him is a well-placed kick in the head from Jenna Rolan, who stomps on the zombie’s head for good measure and helps Jeremy up.</p><p>By the time Mr. Heere gets his bearings, the fight is over. Jeremy runs forward and throws his arms around Mr. Heere’s middle in a tight, desperate hug, and Mr. Heere returns it with relief. At least he knows Jeremy is okay.</p><p>“Dad,” Jeremy says, slumping into Mr. Heere’s chest. “How’d you find us?”</p><p>“Long story,” says Mr. Heere. He turns to Christine, who’s pushed herself up to sit on a metal counter. “I found your cloak, what happened? I was only gone for a week!”</p><p>“Well, we were running from the school mid-play rehearsal,” says Christine, speaking surprisingly casually for the circumstances, “and a zombie with a knife tried to kill me, but it couldn’t get through the cloak’s folds. But I abandoned it ‘cause it was slowing me down and left a note saying ‘zombies! Beware! Leave and never return!’ Did you find it?”</p><p>“All that was left was the letter ‘z’,” says Mr. Heere. Over Jeremy’s head, he can see Jake Dillinger taking out medical supplies from a backpack, laying it out on the table next to where Christine is perched on the edge. “Oh, here, let me do that.”</p><p>Jake says, “No, it’s okay, I got this,” but he doesn’t protest very hard when Mr. Heere detaches himself from Jeremy’s arms, goes over to the counter, and gently pushes Jake aside to survey the materials, then the injuries everyone has. Michael’s nose is bleeding, Rich Goranski has some nasty-looking bruises on his arms, Chloe Valentine has a long, thin cut down her leg, and Brooke Lohst is slumped on the floor next to a different counter, clutching her head.</p><p>Mr. Heere is really not looking forward to being the sole adult in this situation. But he’ll put his pants on, for Jeremy and all these kids who’ve been suddenly thrust into the zombie apocalypse.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>mr heere deserves more love you can fight me. he's not perfect but he's TRYING to be a good person and a good adult and a good father and really what else can you expect from anyone</p><p>also i didn't give him a name bc i couldnt think of any i liked <s>and maybe bc each instance of his name added two words instead of one and i wanted to get more points but shhh</s>. and sorry if you were expecting css'd texts from me but i pumped this thing out barely a few hours before the due date and it's half past midnight and i'm tired and there are only a few texts anyway so it's fine right</p></blockquote></div></div>
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